


Fair

by MelyndaR



Series: My Ingenious Family series [16]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sailor struggles with a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

March 30, 2013

Derek Morgan glanced at his fourteen year old daughter, Sailor Amsel, for what he knew had to be the hundredth time.

Her hair was down. For most teenage girls this was nothing, but Sailor tended to use her hair. On a normal day it was up in a ponytail out of her way, as she put it. When she was bored, she braided it for something to do. And when she was upset about something it came down, and she used it as a shield for her face.

Punctuating his theory was the fact that she was glaring out the car window, with her MP3 player blaring into her ears via ear buds.

"Isn't that loud?" he asked, trying to break the icy wall that his daughter had put up around herself.

She either ignored him or didn't hear him. More than likely, she didn't hear him because she was ignoring him.

"Sailor!"

Nothing.

He blew his breath out between his lips and when they stopped at a stop sign he reached across the console and pulled the ear bud out of her ear.

"What?" his daughter's tone edged on snappish.

"What's going on?" he asked, choosing to cut to the chase.

"Going on?"

"Something's bothering you. What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"Don't profile me."

"Your hair's down. It's not profiling. It's a dead giveaway. I know you."

She turned to glare at him.

"You can talk to me about anything, kiddo."

"A. You know nothing about me. B. You have enough to worry about. My stuff doesn't matter."

"Excuse me?" Derek wasn't sure which of her points he should address first. Probably the latter. " _You_  matter to me. Okay? If there's something going on in your pretty little head, talk to me about it. I'm here for you."

She turned back to the window and said flatly, "No you're not."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She whirled back towards him. "It means you've never been there for me! Not now, not ever!"

"Whoa, where is this coming from?"

"I'm pretty sure the fact has been a looming cloud my whole life." She retorted.

"But I'm here now. I didn't know about you then, but I do now, and I'm here."

"Are you? Really? What about Rich's birthday? Where were you then? You were barely there when Fay was born! And me…" she released a mirthless laugh and turned back away.

"Sailor, I can't help when a case does or doesn't come in, and I'm sorry you feel that way. It's something we all have to adjust to."

"That's not it!" Sailor practically whined. "I know that. I'm fine with that."

"But you just said…"

"I know what I said! What I meant was… why her?"

"Her who?"

"Fay."

Derek tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "You mean… before you came here."

"Yeah." Sailor whispered, all the fight in her suddenly out the window.

"I don't know, kid. I don't know why your mom didn't tell me about you."

"She said that she'd only seen you once. That night."

"Yeah."

"She could've looked you up." Sailor thought aloud. "It's just not fair."

Derek laid a hand on his daughter's jean-clad knee. "Yeah, I know. But we're together now. That's what matters."


	2. Chapter 2

April 1, 2013

Quantico, Virginia

"Come in." Leah Prentiss-Reid called out in answer to the knock on the door of her office.

Sailor poked her head in and the rest of her soon followed. The teenager shut the door behind her.

" _Can I ask you a kinds personal question_?"Sailor asked in Russian, her first language.

The question caught Leah off guard, but Sailor was usually very specific in who she came to, except for with Declan. He heard about almost everything that went on in the girl's head. Sailor had a reason to come to Leah specifically.

"I guess so."

"Ha-Have you ever, um, yelled? At Emily? Argued or snapped or something?"

Leah paused before clarifying, "Argued with Mom?"

Sailor nodded, looking undeniably guilty.

"Honey, come here." Leah motioned for her to approach the desk, instead of lingering at the door. She did and Leah asked carefully, "What's really going on inside that pretty head of yours?"

"I – I – I might have blown up at Dad."

"Why?" Leah wasn't going to judge the girl. She obviously trusted Leah to give her the direction she needed.

"I was – I don't know. Why them, I guess."

"Why who?" Leah came around her desk and sat on the top, knowing most people had all ready left for the day.

"Fay, I guess. And Rich isn't even his, but it's like he is. And for you it's Ray. What did they do to get parents where we didn't? It's not fair."

Leah took a deep breath and let it out, nodding slowly. "Okay. Okay. I can understand that. I considered that a lot myself. When I saw Mom with Jack. Her stepson, well, sort of. Not quite yet. It's like your dad and Rich. He is his stepson. Anyway, I thought about it for a while, and here's the conclusion I came up with." She took a deep breath and kept on, slowly, considering every phrase, hoping she could make Sailor understand. "If my mother had kept me when I was born, I would've grown up in the political circles, right?" She waited for Sailor to nod before continuing. "I would most likely have become a society darling or something. Point being, I would've known how to make friends. Sooo… when I went to Yale, that ability would have been with me. Which, by the way I see it, means that the faculty would never have called Spencer. Which means I never would have met him."

"Until your mom started working at the BAU." Sailor pointed out.

"Ah, but consider. If she had had to take care of a child from such a young age, she probably would have taken the first job that came to her. One of those could have been politics, in which she would have been perpetually miserable. Another is the usual, fast food and such. An entirely different choice is marriage. No way would she have went through FBI training in any of those scenarios, which means no BAU. Which also means no Spencer."

"That may be true for you, but how does that apply to me?" Sailor asked.

"Well, let's think here for a second. How did you meet Declan?"

Fifteen minutes later, they had it all worked out and Sailor was looking much happier. "So…" she said slowly. "If I hadn't gone to the boarding school…I wouldn't have gotten close to Declan."

Leah smiled the sort of smile of a big sister trying to get the scoop out of her little sister as they gathered up their things. "And if you hadn't met Declan, plans would never have been made for anything."

"Plans never have been made for anything." Sailor objected.

"Oh, don't even try to give me that. I was fourteen once to, kid."

"I thought you were a loner during high school." Sailor said, opening the door to Leah's office.

Leah held it open for her and as she passed, Leah pointed out. "At fourteen, I was sophomore in Yale."

Sailor burst out laughing. "Of course you were."

"I was."

"Yeah, but I bet you were one of the good girls who studied all the time."

"Nope. I read through the textbooks, at 20, 000 words per minute, and my eidetic memory did the rest. I barely took any time for studying."

"Ugh, you are so lucky!"

Leah knocked her companion's shoulder with her elbow to get her attention as they walked through the darkened FBI building. "We both are. It all comes out in the end, fair and square."


End file.
